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Darwin Tuesday.First stop today was the oil storage tunnels.When Darwin was bombed by the Japanese in WW11 the oil storage tanks were badly hit and the authorities realised how vulnerable the oil supplies were so they built tunnels into the cliffs by the wharfs and the idea was to pump the oil from the wharf into the tunnels. (The tunnels themselves would have been the storage tanks) but by the time they had finished them the war was nearly over and the danger had passed so they were never used.Two of them are open to the public and they are very interesting.Next it was the Chinese temple set in a residential area by the bay.It is open for worshippers every day and visitors are welcome to look round but asked to respect people who come in to pray and while we were there 3 people came in to worship.At one point in Darwin's history there were more Chinese than non Chinese and that included Aborigines. We got a bit confused at our next stop we thought we had gone into the pearling museum but it was a marine life experience (the two share the same building and very confusingly the same entrance.)It was good and we decided not to do the pearling one after all.After lunch we went to Fannie Bay goal which was built in the 1890s and still in use in the 1970s.It was different than the others goals we have seen.It is as they left it in the 70s with interpretive boards to tell you what you are looking at and no play acting and people dressed in character wandering around.Also it is free.By now we were museumed out and happy to come back for a swim in the park pool.We leave Darwin tomorrow and make our way back the way we came.We hope to get to Mataranka in one day and spend a day in the hot springs there.Matarankaweds and Thurs.Mataranka is a very small settlement which exists to service the pastoralists around here and the Aboriginal community which lives a few ks out of town but in the town today we have seen more indigenous people as we should now call them than we have seen anywhere else.They congregate in groups in the shade under the trees and seem to spend much of the day there occasionally going to the shop or going of for a walk.This is all age groups from babies oldies and school age children.Getting the parents to send their children to school is a big problem.We had been warned not to leave our car unattended and stay out of some towns but we haven't had any problems just the slight anxiety you get in any town when groups are roaming about the streets and shopping areas.Mataranka is famous for its thermal springs which a notice board told us are not thermal because they are not heated.I don't care what the correct term is they are lovely.The one which is a very short walk from this caravan site has always been used for swimming but during WW11 when this area was used as a huge stores area the bored soldiers enlarged the pool and later someone added steps and a concrete wall to hold the bank.The other pool a few ks away is more natural but does have steps, perfect for me and they are both lovely with average temperature of 33 degrees.We spent 2 hours in one this morning and an hour in the site one late afternoon.We just didn't want to get out.Tomorrow we start the long haul to Mt. Isa.with very little of interest on the way.
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